Is Daily Driver Depot Time Costing Your Operation?

Driver depot time is the time period of when a driver is not behind the wheel and at the depot before setting out or after returning from their routes.  

While they represent only a small proportion of the day for each driver, these windows can become a hidden cost as organisations scale up. 

Unchecked driver depot time can lead to inflated overtime costs, delayed departures, and declining service quality for logistics and distribution operations. These inefficiencies might subtly reduce your margins as your fleet grows. 

Whether you're unsure what your average driver’s depot time looks like or suspect it's too high without knowing how to address it, this guide offers a structured approach to identify and eliminate unnecessary delays. 

What Contributes to Excessive Driver Depot Time?

Driver depot time is allocated for legitimate operational tasks such as pre-trip daily vehicle inspections, loading, and at the end-of-day check-ins. But in practice, this time can stretch out due to process issues or unproductive habits of individual drivers. 

Typical issues include: 

Operational inefficiencies

• Delayed vehicle readiness: Drivers arrive before loading is complete or vehicles are available, or loading doesn’t begin until the driver arrives. These can also lead to delayed start times. 
• Complex load builds: Custom order picking and staging slow the loading process. Possibly due to complicated loads, multiple SKU’s or compartmentalisation for each drop, resulting in delayed vehicle readiness. 
• Disorganised returns handling: Returns and damaged goods lack a streamlined intake process. 
• Congested yards or loading bays: High vehicle traffic can cause bottlenecks at loading bays and lead to wait times. 
• Manual processes: Paper-based vehicle safety checks or unclear dispatch instructions slow down routines. If a digital proof of delivery system is not in use, then delays can occur as goods are checked onto the vehicle or paperwork is dealt with. 

Driver behaviour

• Non-work activities: Depot time is spent on unrelated tasks or socialising. 
• Lack of visibility: Without tracking these non-driving times, drivers may not realise how long they’re spending at the depot and there is little incentive to alter their ways. 

Why Track Excessive Depot Time?

Extended driver depot time has a compounding effect: 

• Higher overtime, leading to higher costs and potential driver fatigue. 
• Delayed route departures risking missed delivery slots. 
• Increased warehouse, dock bay or yard congestion impacting other inbound/outbound vehicles and efficiency. 

Descartes discovered with some mid-sized operations, that just 25 minutes of extra depot time per driver per day could result in six-figure annual costs. This can rapidly rise to be millions each year in larger fleets. 

Why Many Distributors Don't Measure It

Despite its impact, depot time often flies under the radar. That’s because most fleet and route tools focus on mileage, journey times, and delivery performance—not time spent before and after the route. 

When route planning tools aren’t integrated with your workforce systems, these inefficiencies go unmonitored. 

How to Detect and Reduce Depot Time

A few key changes can bring depot time under control and improve fleet performance. Visibility of depot time shows up if route dispatch software is used and planned times are compared to actual. 

1. Use integrated tools for visibility

Connecting route execution systems with your Human Resources Information System (HRIS) data will shine a light on drivers’ costs: 

• Detect depot time anomalies: use GPS, clock-in times, and vehicle telemetry to cross reference and identify inconsistencies. 
• Get real-time alerts: automatically flag prolonged depot stays, and deviations from plan instantly, alerting managers to issues as they occur. 
• Automate coaching prompts to address violations or repeated patterns. 

2. Fix operational bottlenecks

Once patterns start to emerge, explore the underlying reasons: 

• Are drivers waiting for vehicle readiness or hunting for equipment? 
• Are certain tasks better handled by warehouse staff or loaders? 
• Are too many vehicles/drivers waiting at the same time and location causing congestion? 
• Could staging areas or shift patterns reduce congestion? 
• Do route start times need to be adjusted if loading regularly takes longer than expected? 

These insights enable targeted changes that will reduce inefficiency. 

3. Coach drivers for consistent habits

Unproductive behaviours tend to be recurrent yet often unintended. By benchmarking driver depot times, inefficiencies can be addressed and drivers informed and encouraged to change their ways: 

• Provide feedback and positive reinforcement, maybe use gamification and league tables for encouragement with incentives. 
• Train on efficient pre-/post-trip routines. 
• Clarify what tasks are required and what’s unnecessary as well as how long you expect them to take. 
• Support slower drivers with targeted coaching. 

The Impact of Identifying and Dealing with Depot Time in Practice

US-based distributor Heartland Coca-Cola implemented Descartes route execution tools to measure and manage depot time across sites as they saw that a lack of fleet visibility was possibly leading to increased costs. Instead of assuming a fixed 30-minute window, they now benchmark each location’s actual performance and track improvements over time. 

Supervisors can now identify individual drivers whose depot time consistently exceeds the average and investigate further. Often, it’s a fixable issue, such as a misunderstanding about responsibilities or a recurring bottleneck. 

 “Maybe you’ve got one team member that’s taking an hour every day,” explains Curtis Ackerman, Business Process Lead at Heartland Coca-Cola.  “Is that team member maybe doing some things that they think they’re supposed to do, but they don’t need to? Is there an obstacle in their way that we need to remove? In the past, we didn’t have that information: It was all based on feeling.” 

Convert Multiple Small Delays and Inefficiencies into Quantifiable Savings

When left unchecked, driver depot time can snowball into a significant operational burden. But with the right tools and data, these minutes become manageable and measurable. 

Looking to get started?

Descartes route execution tools can help you identify, measure, and control hidden time drains in your operation, allowing you to turn them into performance advantages. 

Contact us to discover more.